Monday, August 29, 2011

So So Close - uber long blog

Spent a couple days in Door County - sort of a business trip to get a few more photos for the Pumpkin Patch Festival in Egg Harbor. While my canopy is looking good for around the Madison area if you take out the big threee pieces of canvas that have the State Capitol I have some wall space to fill.

But first - I need to tell a story of Milo. As you all know Milo hates coffee, can not stand the smell and will go out of his way to rid the world of coffee.

Last Sunday I had made coffee and Milo was outside catching more mice (there is a shit load of mice it seems in the area as we get a present every morning.) With him being outside it was safe to have coffee so I set the cup on the little area above the couch so DJ could grab it.

I sat down and was reading the paper and DJ was reading and we here MEOW!!   I go let Milo in and go back to the paper.  All of a sudden a Netflix envelope drops on my head and we look up and there is DJ's full cup of coffee, literally, wobbling on the edge of the ledge a few feet above our heads with Milo, I swear smiling over it like a cheshire cat.    MILO!!!!

Since I'm on a Milo thought wave.  We left Milo and Sierra along to protect the house and left a huge bowl of food and water for them to munch on.  We get home and open up the door and there is the garbage on the floor (oops), empty bowls and the entire canister of cat food, upside down on the floor. 

Not only does Milo know how to open the sliding doors to the house (unless we lock them) but he has also learned that knocking food in containers off the counters, SOMETIMES, opens them spilling the contents (like a dozen cupcakes) onto the floor for any animal to eat.  Blake did not feel good the night of the cupcakes!
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Door County was pretty nice except for the complete lack of cloud cover. Clear blue sky which I loath for photography.  But, I made do. One thing that was brought to my attention was that "Vince" might not be a big seller.  Seems over half of the cars up there were from Illinois.  I need to make it down to Chicago.

We were only up for one and a half days so basically we just drove around looking for targets of opportunity.  Had a vague plan but many times it's the surprise's that make the best shots.  We traveled up to Deaths Door where the ferry takes people to Washington Island and took some shots but not really anything to get excited about. However at Gills Rock I saw a scene flash by and DJ commented there might be a shot so we stopped and talked to some fishermen.

Here is the results.

Gills Rock
 This looks MUCH better large - I tried several things and everything just looked like a photograph that anybody could take.  So I tried it out a little with the same technique I used on the wooden boat panoramic.

After stopping there for a while we went to Peninsula State Park so Blake could walk his favorite trail - the Hemlock Trail.  He LOVES this little hike as it's soft on his feet and he is just in heaven.  We let him go and with a huge grin on his face he leads the way.  If you know Blake he is like walking a sack of potatoes but get him on this trail and just takes off wagging his tail.  Well, it's a long trail (for him) and is downhill the first half mile.  We started the 2nd half and found a bench and were "resting" as he was huffing and puffing and we had him sit for a few moments. 

He would have none of the sitting.  He looked at us with a huge grin and happy sparkling eyes and  BARK!!    WOW - he never barks.  He wanted to GO GO GO.  Remember, he's 14 years old and according to the UK Kennel Club the average life span for a Cardigan Welsh Corgi is 11.7 years.

Well - we started again and he was a little trooper huffing and puffing and we made it.

Have you ever seen what the Iron Men looks like the day after the race?  I've always wanted to push them over and run because I knew they could not catch me.  Blake was sore on all for legs.  He had problems getting out of his bed, the sides were too high!  He spent the next day in the car sleeping and as of Monday morning he is still very sore and can not move a lot - I think I'll have to call the vet for pain pills.

We went to Cave Point as I had an idea for a shot but once we got there - it was CRAZY busy. Two bus loads of Japanese (not that I have a problem with Japanese), a biker gang, a group of knuckleheads swimming, and 4 or 5 large families, yea, not a great time for a serine scenic photo.

However - as luck would have it - the very first thing I did was stop at the entrance and snap off some photos. It was nothing I had not seen before . . . but maybe I just did not SEE it before.  Maybe it was the lighting (we went from clear blue to total blah cloud cover in like 10 minutes).

I had walked through that opening every year for the last 40 years but on that particular day something drew me to the scene. 

Opening to Cave Point
 
And as I was taking that shot (actually I ran back to the car to get a remote sensor of the camera) the cycle gang roared in, the buses can in, the knuckled head were looking to a place to swim in Lake Michigan and so forth.

OH - I forgot - another shot from Gills Rock.

I'm still trying to figure out how to crop this. In a 12x36 pano?  I don't know - it's vexing me - maybe a perfect square?   Here is the pano.

Maybe a vertical pano - I don't know.  I swear I took more shots but seems I didn't - the round bobber things are the stars!
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Seagulls - wanted to get a seagull perched on something - never happened!

So I took some shots of seagulls in flight - they looked like snapshots of seagulls in flight that anybody could take (like me).   Hey - I'm tossing things out there to hear any comments (good comments) - sometimes I stumble on something (Rainy Day in Madison was one of those).

 
Jonathon

 On the way back to Columbus we stopped in Algoma for a lighthouse shot - BTW - the temperature in Algoma Friday at 2:30 was 68 degrees!!


Also on the way down from Door we stopped at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum to tour the USS Cobia.  I have a bunch of shots on the website of the inside and will be making some posters but here is one of the outside of the ship.


I'll have more tomorrow - this is getting rather long!

Warm end of the week coming up!

Have a good one.
Rod

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